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The Rise of the Protester-Terrorist
Anti-Israel protesters demonstrate in front of Congregation Keter Torah in Teaneck, New Jersey, US, on March 10, 2024. Photo: Kyle Mazza/NurPhoto via Reuters Connect
JNS.org – For Jews the world over, the past eight months have been little more than a series of catastrophes. Contrary to their expectations, American Jews have proved to be no exception. They have discovered that no Jewish community is ever immune to history.
American Jews are reeling from this terrible realization. To an extent, so are all Americans, and with good reason. After all, what has emerged since the Oct. 7 massacre has been rather remarkable: A self-declared “antiracist” movement that embraces antisemitism. An unholy alliance between a totalitarian theocratic movement and ostensibly secular progressives. Imperious institutions of higher education that happily tolerate the most brazen violations of their own codes of conduct. Politicians who preach morality while calling for genocide.
Above all, the first antisemitic mass movement in American history has arisen. There have been antisemitic movements in America before, of course. But never have they been this large, politically influential, violent and explicitly opposed to the fundamental principles of their own society.
Certainly, many of those participating in this movement are simply ignorant conformists riding a wave of protest and outrage. They likely have little idea of what all the fuss is about, but they enjoy the opportunity to vent their inchoate anger. Moreover, thanks to a collaborationist media, there is a terrible glamour to self-righteous mayhem. It is trendy to hate Israel and the Jews, and, sadly, America is a society of trends.
The movement is being led, however, by a remarkable character: the protester-terrorist.
The protester-terrorist is not an entirely new phenomenon. Contrary to the claims of most historians, American protest movements have always had a violent side. The riot, large or small, has been a constant throughout American history. In a nation founded in a violent revolution, it could hardly be otherwise.
The protester-terrorist is quite different from other protesters. Unlike the passive resistor or even the rioter, the protester-terrorist does not take to the streets in order to confront oppressive authority or engage in random acts of violence. Instead, under the guise of activism, the protester-terrorist pursues the work of terrorism in another register. He does not set off bombs in buses or slaughter women and children. But his strategy is the same: to use the public display of horrific acts to intimidate others into silence and surrender.
This tactic of the “propaganda of the deed” is not new either. But today’s iteration is unlike its predecessors in two ways: its nihilism and its institutionalization.
Regarding the former, rarely have we seen an ostensible protest movement so brazenly hurl all morality to the winds. Today’s protester-terrorists are not simply immoral; they are anti-moral. Their ethos is a total inversion of ethics. To them—and we know this because they say so—murdering, raping, kidnapping and torturing innocent people is a good thing. So is racism. So is genocide. So, for all we know, is the destruction of the world. The protester-terrorist is not just morally bankrupt. He is satanic. He is morality’s adversary.
As for institutionalization, it is clear that we are seeing the endgame of one of the most successful conspiracies in American history. Half a century ago, having failed to seize power through riot and terrorism, the radicals of the 1960s turned to the infiltration of powerful institutions to transform them into weapons for radical political action. This “long march through the institutions” was wildly successful. The American university system and the elite it manufactures are now ruled by a dictatorship of the professoriate that employs intellectual and at times physical terrorism to impose its ideology on a nation that does not want it.
Never before, however, has the professoriate so publicly revealed the dark heart of its ideology. Like the neo-Nazis and Klansmen it ostensibly despises, the regime has sent out its protester-terrorists on a campaign of racist hate crimes that specifically target Jewish students and faculty regardless of their views on Israel, the Palestinians and indeed anything else. In doing so, the regime revealed that protester-terrorism is not just a weapon but the essence of the regime.
Given all this, we must wonder what comes next. The possibilities are not encouraging. The protester-terrorists may make American Jewish life unlivable. American Jews may find themselves in the same position as their Western European brethren, with occasional pogroms storming through their neighborhoods, their synagogues and schools under constant military guard and a general sense of helplessness and oppression pervading their lives. Stripped of the political, professional, cultural and academic success they have enjoyed for decades, they will be forced to ask the previously unthinkable: Is it time to leave?
For Americans in general, the moment may be even more portentous. The ultimate target of any terrorist—protester or not—is the society in which he lives. Indeed, there is no doubt that the protester-terrorists’ next target will be the American political system. The protester-terrorists have made it quite clear that they are perfectly willing to destroy one of America’s major political parties. Plans are already underway for a full-scale assault on the Democratic National Convention.
This ethos of the suicide bomber will not end with the Democrats. When any terrorist movement is permitted to grow until it reaches critical mass, no society, regardless of party, can survive what follows.
None of this, however, has to happen. The protester-terrorist has only become so dangerous because he has been allowed to. Supported by powerful forces in American society, he has been granted near-total impunity for decades. If those powerful forces are brought to heel, if they are forced to obey the ethics and laws that everyone else must obey, if their indulgences are ended, the protester-terrorist cannot survive.
The imperative, then, for American Jews and non-Jews alike, is to demand that the long march through the institutions at last be halted and turned back. Perhaps more importantly, they must insist that the responsible authorities recognize a simple fact: A terrorist is always protesting something, but this cannot and must not grant him immunity for crimes that threaten not just a beleaguered minority but the republic itself.
The post The Rise of the Protester-Terrorist first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Syria’s Sharaa Says Talks With Israel Could Yield Results ‘In Coming Days’
Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa speaks at the opening ceremony of the 62nd Damascus International Fair, the first edition held since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, in Damascus, Syria, Aug. 27, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Khalil Ashawi
Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa said on Wednesday that ongoing negotiations with Israel to reach a security pact could lead to results “in the coming days.”
He told reporters in Damascus the security pact was a “necessity” and that it would need to respect Syria’s airspace and territorial unity and be monitored by the United Nations.
Syria and Israel are in talks to reach an agreement that Damascus hopes will secure a halt to Israeli airstrikes and the withdrawal of Israeli troops who have pushed into southern Syria.
Reuters reported this week that Washington was pressuring Syria to reach a deal before world leaders gather next week for the UN General Assembly in New York.
But Sharaa, in a briefing with journalists including Reuters ahead of his expected trip to New York to attend the meeting, denied the US was putting any pressure on Syria and said instead that it was playing a mediating role.
He said Israel had carried out more than 1,000 strikes on Syria and conducted more than 400 ground incursions since Dec. 8, when the rebel offensive he led toppled former Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad.
Sharaa said Israel’s actions were contradicting the stated American policy of a stable and unified Syria, which he said was “very dangerous.”
He said Damascus was seeking a deal similar to a 1974 disengagement agreement between Israel and Syria that created a demilitarized zone between the two countries.
He said Syria sought the withdrawal of Israeli troops but that Israel wanted to remain at strategic locations it seized after Dec. 8, including Mount Hermon. Israeli ministers have publicly said Israel intends to keep control of the sites.
He said if the security pact succeeds, other agreements could be reached. He did not provide details, but said a peace agreement or normalization deal like the US-mediated Abraham Accords, under which several Muslim-majority countries agreed to normalize diplomatic ties with Israel, was not currently on the table.
He also said it was too early to discuss the fate of the Golan Heights because it was “a big deal.”
Reuters reported this week that Israel had ruled out handing back the zone, which Donald Trump unilaterally recognized as Israeli during his first term as US president.
“It’s a difficult case – you have negotiations between a Damascene and a Jew,” Sharaa told reporters, smiling.
SECURITY PACT DERAILED IN JULY
Sharaa also said Syria and Israel had been just “four to five days” away from reaching the basis of a security pact in July, but that developments in the southern province of Sweida had derailed those discussions.
Syrian troops were deployed to Sweida in July to quell fighting between Druze armed factions and Bedouin fighters. But the violence worsened, with Syrian forces accused of execution-style killings and Israel striking southern Syria, the defense ministry in Damascus and near the presidential palace.
Sharaa on Wednesday described the strikes near the presidential palace as “not a message, but a declaration of war,” and said Syria had still refrained from responding militarily to preserve the negotiations.
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Anti-Israel Activists Gear Up to ‘Flood’ UN General Assembly
US Capitol Police and NYPD officers clash with anti-Israel demonstrators, on the day Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses a joint meeting of Congress, on Capitol Hill, in Washington, DC, July 24, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas
Anti-Israel groups are planning a wave of raucous protests in New York City during the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) over the next several days, prompting concerns that the demonstrations could descend into antisemitic rhetoric and intimidation.
A coalition of anti-Israel activists is organizing the protests in and around UN headquarters to coincide with speeches from Middle Eastern leaders and appearances by US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The demonstrations are expected to draw large crowds and feature prominent pro-Palestinian voices, some of whom have been criticized for trafficking in antisemitic tropes, in addition to calling for the destruction of Israe.
Organizers of the demonstrations have promoted the coordinated events on social media as an opportunity to pressure world leaders to hold Israel accountable for its military campaign against Hamas in Gaza, with some messaging framed in sharply hostile terms.
On Sunday, for example, activists shouted at Israel’s Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon.
“Zionism is terrorism. All you guys are terrorists committing ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza and Palestine. Shame on you, Zionist animals,” they shouted.
BREAKING: PRO-PALESTINE PROTESTORS CONFRONT “ISRAELI” AMBASSADOR DANNY DANON AT THE UNITED NATIONS
1/5 pic.twitter.com/4G1VYEMGzV
— Within Our Lifetime (@WOLPalestine) September 14, 2025
The Combat Antisemitism Movement (CAM), warned on its website that the scale and tone of the planned demonstrations risk crossing the line from political protest into hate speech, arguing that anti-Israel activists are attempting to hijack the UN gathering to spread antisemitism and delegitimize the Jewish state’s right to exist.
Outside the UN last week, masked protesters belonging to the activist group INDECLINE kicked a realistic replica of Netanyahu’s decapitated head as though it were a soccer ball.
US activist group plays soccer with Bibi’s mock decapitated HEAD right outside NYC UN HQ
Peep shot at 00:40
Footage posted by INDECLINE collective just as UN General Assembly about to kick off
‘Following the game, ball was donated to Palestinian Genocide Museum’ pic.twitter.com/TQ84sgZhKr
— RT (@RT_com) September 9, 2025
Within Our Lifetime (WOL), a radical anti-Israel activist group, has vowed to “flood” the UNGA on behalf of the pro-Palestine movement.
WOL, one of the most prolific anti-Israel activist groups, came under immense fire after it organized a protest against an exhibition to honor the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre at the Nova Music Festival in southern Israel. During the event, the group chanted “resistance is justified when people are occupied!” and “Israel, go to hell!”
“We will be there to confront them with the truth: Their silence and inaction enable genocide. The world cannot continue as if Gaza does not exist,” WOL said of its planned demonstrations in New York. “This is the time to make our voices impossible to ignore. Come to New York by any means necessary, to stand, to march, to demand the UN act and end the siege.”
Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM), two other anti-Israel organizations that have helped organize widespread demonstrations against the Jewish state during the war in Gaza, also announced they are planning a march from Times Square to the UN headquarters on Friday.
“The time is now for each and every UN member state to uphold their duty under international law: sanction Israel and end the genocide,” the groups said in a statement.
JVP, an organization that purports to fight for “Palestinian liberation,” has positioned itself as a staunch adversary of the Jewish state. The group argued in a 2021 booklet that Jews should not write Hebrew liturgy because hearing the language would be “deeply traumatizing” to Palestinians. JVP has repeatedly defended the Oct. 7 massacre of roughly 1,200 people in southern Israel by Hamas as a justified “resistance.” Chapters of the organization have urged other self-described “progressives” to throw their support behind Hamas and other terrorist groups against Israel
Similarly, PYM, another radical anti-Israel group, has repeatedly defended terrorism and violence against the Jewish state. PYM has organized many anti-Israel protests in the two years following the Oct. 7 attacks in the Jewish state. Recently, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AK) called for a federal investigation into the organization after Aisha Nizar, one of the group’s leaders, urged supporters to sabotage the US supply chain for the F-35 fighter jet, one of the most advanced US military assets and a critical component of Israel’s defense.
The UN General Assembly has historically been a flashpoint for heated debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Previous gatherings have seen dueling demonstrations outside the Manhattan venue, with pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups both seeking to influence the international spotlight.
While warning about the demonstrations, CAM noted it recently launched a new mobile app, Report It, that allows users worldwide to quickly and securely report antisemitic incidents in real time.
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Nina Davidson Presses Universities to Back Words With Action as Jewish Students Return to Campus Amid Antisemitism Crisis
Nina Davidson on The Algemeiner’s ‘J100’ podcast. Photo: Screenshot
Philanthropist Nina Davidson, who served on the board of Barnard College, has called on universities to pair tough rhetoric on combatting antisemitism with enforcement as Jewish students returned to campuses for the new academic year.
“Years ago, The Algemeiner had published a list ranking the most antisemitic colleges in the country. And number one was Columbia,” Davidson recalled on a recent episode of The Algemeiner‘s “J100” podcast. “As a board member and as someone who was representing the institution, it really upset me … At the board meeting, I brought it up and I said, ‘What are we going to do about this?’”
Host David Cohen, chief executive officer of The Algemeiner, explained he had revisited Davidson’s remarks while she was being honored for her work at The Algemeiner‘s 8th annual J100 gala, held in October 2021, noting their continued relevance.
“It could have been the same speech in 2025,” he said, underscoring how longstanding concerns about campus antisemitism, while having intensified in the aftermath of Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, are not new.
Davidson argued that universities already possess the tools to protect students – codes of conduct, time-place-manner rules, and consequences for threats or targeted harassment – but too often fail to apply them evenly. “Statements are not enough,” she said, arguing that institutions need to enforce their rules and set a precedent that there will be consequences for individuals who refuse to follow them.
She also said that stakeholders – alumni, parents, and donors – are reassessing their relationships with schools that, in their view, have not safeguarded Jewish students. While supportive of open debate, Davidson distinguished between protest and intimidation, calling for leadership that protects expression while ensuring campus safety.
The episode surveyed specific pressure points that administrators will face this fall: repeat anti-Israel encampments, disruptions of Jewish programming, and the challenge of distinguishing political speech from conduct that violates university rules. “Unless schools draw those lines now,” Davidson warned, “they’ll be scrambling once the next crisis hits.”
Cohen closed by framing the discussion as a test of institutional credibility, asking whether universities will “turn policy into protection” in real time. Davidson agreed, pointing to students who “need to know the rules aren’t just on paper.”
The full conversation is available on The Algemeiner’s “J100” podcast.